NBA Lockout

[GoMuskies]

Anyone care? Anyone?

[SixFig]

I feel bad but not for the players or the owners but the little guys...the PR people, trainers, the popcorn vendors, parking lot attendants, neighborhood businesses etc. All losing money, if not their jobs because millionaires and billionaires can't agree.

[Snipe]

I think it is great because anyone hungry for basketball will have to pay attention to the College game. We can rule ESPN.

I hope it lasts until March.

[bigdiggins]

My wife works with the City of Cleveland in a financial capacity. Unbelievable how much tax revenue they are losing on sales tax, payroll taxes on the players, etc.

[XUglow]

My wife works with the City of Cleveland in a financial capacity. Unbelievable how much tax revenue they are losing on sales tax, payroll taxes on the players, etc.

Crap. Now I feel bad for not caring about the NBA sorting this out.

[Backyard Champ]

I think it is great because anyone hungry for basketball will have to pay attention to the College game. We can rule ESPN.

I hope it lasts until March.

That's not a great thing. Even though I'm a huge Xavier fan, the NBA, as far as a basketball standpoint goes, is obviously far superior.

[GoMuskies]

That's not a great thing. Even though I'm a huge Xavier fan, the NBA, as far as a basketball standpoint goes, is obviously far superior.

I completely disagree. The NBA is generally unwatchable.

[smileyy]

I like the NBA. The lockout sucks. The owners suck, especially those who expect the team to pay for the loan the owner took out to buy the team.

[XUglow]

I like the NBA. The lockout sucks. The owners suck, especially those who expect the team to pay for the loan the owner took out to buy the team.

Hmmm... Not sure if you are serious. When I buy a business or buy out partners, I generally use the proceeds from the business to pay off the loan.

[LutherRackleyRulez]

stern takin' some heat......



Bryant Gumbel Drops One Little Plantation Metaphor,
And Everybody Loses Their S***






http://deadspin.com/5851390/bryant-gumbel-drops-one-little-plantation-metaphor-and-everybody-loses-their-shit

[Masterofreality]

Luther cares.

It may affect his NBA pension.

Dude deserves every dollar he gets.

[GuyFawkes38]

I completely disagree. The NBA is generally unwatchable.

I know that many college basketball fans instinctively hate the NBA. And it's admittedly a bit of a bore the first few months of the year.

But from a pure basketball point of view, the NBA is a vastly superior product. It's not even close.

IMHO, it's a big problem for college basketball. The drop between the NBA and college basketball is much more apparent than the drop between the NFL and college football. College basketball is struggling to attract more casual fans. You either have a strong emotional attachment to your team and you love college basketball. Or you don't and you completely ignore college basketball until the tourney.

I'm hoping for an age limit.

[LutherRackleyRulez]

Luther cares.

It may affect his NBA pension.

Dude deserves every dollar he gets.

MoR,

Damn right!!!

Alwayz figthin' the good fight!

[smileyy]

Hmmm... Not sure if you are serious. When I buy a business or buy out partners, I generally use the proceeds from the business to pay off the loan.

If you can service the loan wholly from the proceeds from the business, it strikes me that the business is undervalued. For example, if I bought a business (somehow) $0 down, and paid off the loan entirely from the proceeds of the business with $0 out of pocket, then the price of the business is far too low.

I've never bought a business, so maybe that's where I'm wrong.

At any rate, its worth keeping in mind that the losses reported by owners are not operating losses, but are losses dependent on the financing structure of their purchase of the team. Imagine a team with $100M in revenue, $60M in player salaries and $20M in other expenses. They have a $20M operating profit.

If the team were bought for $1B cash, the books will show a $20M profit.
If the team were bought for $400M cash and a $600M loan, and the owner is paying $50M a year to service the loan, they'll show a $30M loss.

Is this team profitable or not? I feel like the answer to that question should not depend on the financing structure of the purchase. I might be oversimplifying here, but the profits and losses being talked about by the owners are _not_ operating profits and losses.

[X-band '01]

Don't be fooled by David Stern's scare tactics - they may miss a few weeks of games, maybe a month or two. Much like the NFL (why can't they still be locked out?) they're too big to fail.

I feel bad for markets like Sacramento who have a good history with the Kings; I also feel bad for rising markets like Memphis and Oklahoma City.

[Backyard Champ]

I know that many college basketball fans instinctively hate the NBA. And it's admittedly a bit of a bore the first few months of the year.

But from a pure basketball point of view, the NBA is a vastly superior product. It's not even close.

IMHO, it's a big problem for college basketball. The drop between the NBA and college basketball is much more apparent than the drop between the NFL and college football. College basketball is struggling to attract more casual fans. You either have a strong emotional attachment to your team and you love college basketball. Or you don't and you completely ignore college basketball until the tourney.

I'm hoping for an age limit.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. Being a college board, I expect most to like college basketball better though, which I'm okay with.

IMO, I would watch Xavier vs anyone over any NBA game, then I would MUCH rather watch a random NBA game over a random college game. It incredible to watch NBA games, they are so talented. Most people think there is no defense played in the NBA, but I disagree. I've said it before on this board, but I really do think that the offensive skill sets of a lot of NBA players can be impossible to guard. It really is amazing to watch. NBA is easily one of my favorite sports.

[Xavier]

I would much rather watch a game between two random teams in the NBA then two random teams in College. Watching teams brick shot after shot can be fun for only so long. It amazes me how many wide open shots are missed in College.

[XUglow]

I've never bought a business, so maybe that's where I'm wrong.


Stopped reading here. How could any business survive if the proceeds from the business don't even cover the costs of the loan? Forget NBA owners for a minute. Think hair dresser that gets a small business loan and takes over a beauty shop from a retiring owner. She's got to cover the loan costs and her living expenses from revenue less shop expenses. The typical business is only worth 2 or 3 times earnings. Most people get in trouble by overpaying for a business in the first place. NBA owner or shop keep, fundamentals of business are still the same.

[smileyy]

Stopped reading here. How could any business survive if the proceeds from the business don't even cover the costs of the loan?

Ok, I feel kinda dumb now, because that should be pretty obvious -- because pretty much every business starts with a loan that will need to be paid off by gross profits.

Still, it bothers me to classify a business as profitable or losing money based on the initial capital structure, rather than actual operating revenues and expenses.

Actually, I'll walk that back a bit. Given that the direction of the value of NBA franchises is monotonically upwards over time, I'll wager that its not even true that you need to turn an _operating_ profit to make it profitable to own an NBA franchise.

[GoMuskies]

How many people could afford to sink $1 billion cash into buying a franchise? For a 2% ROI (in your example) no less. You could do better buying Treasury bills with virtually no risk.

[GuyFawkes38]

How many people could afford to sink $1 billion cash into buying a franchise? For a 2% ROI (in your example) no less. You could do better buying Treasury bills with virtually no risk.

Yeah, the numbers don't add up.

Some people claim that there's a fun factor in owning a sports franchise. Owners are willing to invest badly in a franchise because it's a whole lot of fun.

But also, the sports ownership business is shady. They are making more cash than they claim. There's a lack of transparency, plus a lot of accounting tricks. Owners also can stumble into the ownership of half billion dollar stadiums, at the taxpayers expense. Although with the economy tanking, that's less likely now.

It seems like lots of people blame the players in this situation. But in IMHO, the blame lies much more with the owners.

Anyways, I just hope the lockout ends.

[GoMuskies]

For both of you who care, the NBA's 2011-12 season basically ended today.

[Muskie]

Saw that as well. Will the NBA look like hockey did after their lost season?

[chico]

Somewhere (likely in the gym practicing) Tu Holloway reminds himself how smart he is for staying in school.

And somewhere, guys like Kemba Walker, Derrick Williams, Tristan Thompson, Brandon Knight and every other kid who left early wishes he had Tu's decision-making ability.

[XUglow]

Thanks for bringing this up. I had forgotten they were on strike.

[BBC 08]

Well this sucks. I was really excited to watch my Bulls dominate and Jordan, Derrick and David take the next steps in their careers.

Hopefully with no season we will see those 3 around Cintas more.

[coasterville95]

Thanks for the update - GoMuskies.

I had heard the owners were going to give the players "Their best offer" of a 71 game season starting December 15, and if they players didn't take them up on the honor, their next offer would be nowhere near as generous.

I'm guessing the players did not take the offer.

And somewhere, there are NBA arena owners who are francitcally trying to find variety acts to fill their seats and sell their food and beer for them.

I agree with the general feeling that the losers in this whole mess are the common joe arena workers.

And for the rest of us - did anybody notice there weren't any NBA games going on? :D

[Muskie]

Thanks for the update - GoMuskies.

I had heard the owners were going to give the players "Their best offer" of a 71 game season starting December 15, and if they players didn't take them up on the honor, their next offer would be nowhere near as generous.

I'm guessing the players did not take the offer.

And somewhere, there are NBA arena owners who are francitcally trying to find variety acts to fill their seats and sell their food and beer for them.

I agree with the general feeling that the losers in this whole mess are the common joe arena workers.

And for the rest of us - did anybody notice there weren't any NBA games going on? :D

My hockey consumption is way up.

[PMI]

I mean I'd rather there be an NBA, but I'll certainly survive. This is definitely nowhere near as frustrating as the NHL lockout that lasted all season (although it couldn't have been more beneficial for my team in every regard) but I still wanted a salvaged season. In particular I wanted to see the 2nd years of John Wall and Jordan Crawford. Between hockey and college hoops hopefully getting a boost in coverage with the NBA's absence, there are plenty silver linings in all of this, not the least of which is that Queen James grows another year older with a naked ring finger.

[pizza delivery]

What does this do for the next draft class? Seems like a lot of dreams will never take flight due to this lock out, unless a lot of the older players get fat and have to retire. But they may just get healthier, too. 2011 and 2012's draft classes will see a lot of guys miss out.

[X-band '01]

I mean I'd rather there be an NBA, but I'll certainly survive. This is definitely nowhere near as frustrating as the NHL lockout that lasted all season (although it couldn't have been more beneficial for my team in every regard) but I still wanted a salvaged season. In particular I wanted to see the 2nd years of John Wall and Jordan Crawford. Between hockey and college hoops hopefully getting a boost in coverage with the NBA's absence, there are plenty silver linings in all of this, not the least of which is that Queen James grows another year older with a naked ring finger.

He can always go to Europe and get a ring there someplace.

Personally, I'm not surprised that the owners are willing to sacrifice the season if necessary. They're probably going to follow the same blueprint of NHL owners from around 5-6 years ago just to get "their" agreement in place.

As much as I joke about the wrong sport being locked out, public opinion is not such that fans are demanding to watch NBA games like they were NFL games.

[smileyy]

I'm pretty happy for the players that they opted to blow the season up. The players made every concession, and for every concession they made, the owners moved the goalposts on them. As hard as they had gotten stepped on today, they would have gotten stepped on even harder the next time.

The owners never had any interest in bargaining with the players for a system of mutual benefit.

[X-band '01]

Don't look now, but a tentative deal is in place to start the season on Christmas Day. We'll see if both sides wind up agreeing in the end.

I'm not sure where David Stern is going with the script, err, season.

[THRILLHOUSE]

Details about the agreement and the upcoming season:

http://sheridanhoops.com/2011/11/26/nba-lockout-agreement-settlement-details/

Top Free Agents. David West to the Pacers makes sense to me:

http://sheridanhoops.com/2011/10/06/nba-free-agents/

[GuyFawkes38]

Smiley mentioned earlier on this thread that's there's a lot more disagreement between owners than between owners and the players.

That seems to be true.

The NBA looks like a complete joke by not allowing the CP3 trade. Just mind-boggling insane. Never would have thought that something like that could happened to a professional league.

Please, let there be lawsuits. Something like this shouldn't happen.

[bobbiemcgee]

Not sure they can sue since the NBA owns the Hornets. The owners of the team certainly have the right not to trade a player, I would think.

[Ledgewood]

Competition is good in sports. There is less of that in the NBA. If they want 4 all star teams, then they should just make a 4 team league. I can see the players arguments and the teams that want the trade to go through, and casual fans will love the superteams, but it's oppressive to all the other teams not in Boston, NY, LA or in South Beach (where there are, in fact, no fans at all).

The system, not unlike other sports, is that big markets get big names and small markets build through drafts. But with these superteams forming, a small market team with a big lottery pick still won't ever be able to compete even for a short while before they go to someplace where more rappers live. It's just annoying.

[smileyy]

Not sure they can sue since the NBA owns the Hornets. The owners of the team certainly have the right not to trade a player, I would think.

But it brings up what a joke it is for the league to have an owner with a stake in more than one team.

I mean, even with CP3, I still don't make the Lakers the favorites for the title. Gasol and Odom are their second and third most productive players.